She is quietly stripped of her Home leadership role and separated from my father as part of her breaking. She spends more and more time in her small bedroom at the End House, our latest acquisition on the far side of the Stone House. When I see her occasionally at family time, her eyes are red and swollen. Why is my father letting this happen?
I know the Shepherds are a bit scared of him. Not only is he Grandpa’s son, but he’s famous for his trigger-happy temper. I’ve seen them flinch when he raises his voice. It’s still the “Ho Farm.” I suspect he’s using his usual tactic of agreeing with everything and waiting for it to blow over and the WS Shepherds to leave so things can go back to normal, so I’m not too worried.
But that strategy won’t work this time.
In the middle of my mother’s trials, we have a bright spot: the birth of my baby brother! Or rather, two new brothers, as Auntie Jeannie is also having my father’s baby. Auntie Jeannie is about the same age as my mother, but the two women look nothing alike. Auntie Jeannie resembles a thin-boned, freckled bird topped with a cloud of red curls. But she sizzles with nervous energy like she’s been plugged into a light socket.
Their babies are born two days apart, and Auntie Jeannie and my mother end up side by side in hospital beds. I’m later told that when the doctor came to check them for release, he picked up Auntie Jeannie’s chart and checked it, then picked up my mother’s chart and paused.
Recognizing the confusion on the doctor’s face as he spotted my father’s name on both charts, my mother commented, “They were almost twins!”
She loves to tell that story. Of course, a good disciple is not jealous.
My mother names her new baby Jondy, after my father’s nickname. When she comes home from the hospital on my eleventh birthday, she calls me to her and hands me my baby brother. He’s wrapped in a small patchwork blanket that we teen girls sewed for him. His little fist pushes out, and his mouth opens in a big yawn. He is the cutest, goofiest baby I’ve ever seen. I kiss his fuzzy forehead and smell his baby skin.
“It’s your turn now. When Nina was born, your brothers took turns raising her. Now you are old enough to take care of Jondy,” she tells me. My teen job of taking care of the toddlers has prepared me for this.
I’m delighted. He’s mine.
“Make sure you bring him back to me every two hours to nurse, at least until we get him on a bottle,” she calls after me as I carry him out of her room.
I now have two, nearly twin, baby brothers. Although we don’t really consider Auntie Jeannie one of my father’s wives in the same way Esther and Ruthie are, she’s kind of been adopted by our family, so Andy becomes our little brother. He is the fattest baby on the planet—his fat rolls have fat rolls. He doesn’t cry or fuss much, like the other babies do. He just lays in his bouncer like Buddha, his fat cheeks resting on his shoulders. Jondy is the opposite. Wiggly and wiry, he wants constant movement. His big ears, like mine, stick out from his pixie head. His goofy, drooling smile lights his eyes with pure joy when I cross my eyes and stick out my tongue. When my mother can’t calm his fussing, I rock him to sleep. There is no off-the-clock time with him. Even in the Family where we are used to always caring for younger children, eleven is young to be in charge of a newborn. Having this responsibility makes me feel like a real teen, and I can’t help but feel self-important whenever my baby brother spits up on my shoulder. It proves I’m not a kid anymore.
My father seems proud of his two new sons, though he is too busy with the teens to spend time with Andy or Jondy. He and Aunt Faithy have been loving running the new teen group. They have a willing audience to listen to their stories of the early days of the Family. But his talent for ignoring things he doesn’t want to hear doesn’t sit well with the Shepherds from WS.
A few weeks after the births of his two new sons, my father is sent to Japan. The visit is supposed to be a few weeks long, so no one makes a big deal when he takes my two oldest brothers, Hobo and Nehi, with him and brings them to the HCS. The boys are sixteen and seventeen, and it’s time for them to leave home. But my father is privately hoping that this invitation is more than a simple visit. After all, he knows that Grandpa is secretly living in the HCS.
At first I barely notice my father’s disappearance. In recent years, he’d been spending more and more time on his real love, the animals. Overseeing building projects and witnessing to and cementing relationships with our key System friends took the rest of his time. When I stopped working with the animals, I rarely saw him, until he started taking on the teen activities. Even then, I interacted with him only as a Shepherd, not as my father. Now, in his absence, other adults quickly fill the power vacuum left, and our daily regimen continues the same. Until an unexpected visitor arrives.
13
The Grand Experiment
Shortly after my father’s departure, we get word that someone from Grandpa’s house is coming to visit the Farm. There is huge excitement and even greater speculation over who it might be. I secretly hope that I will finally meet Davidito, but I hardly dare to think it might be Grandpa coming.
Turns out, it’s Auntie Sara, who has been living in hiding with Grandpa. Boy, are we excited to meet her, someone we’ve read about in the comics and the Mo Letters for our whole lives. The fact that someone so important is coming to our faraway village feels like we’ve won the lottery.
Auntie Sara arrives in secret, as the leaders always do. The first glimpse I have of her is at Devotions. There is nothing dramatic in her appearance. She’s a rather plain auntie with long, straight, thinning brown hair. She wears the same shapeless long dress as the other aunties. But there is nothing subtle about her impact.
Her first night, she gathers all the teens together, except me. I’m not told about this meeting until I hear the shocked whispers from the teens afterward, and I’m cruelly disappointed that I missed out. Apparently, Auntie Sara did some kind of public sex demonstration with one of my brothers, in front of all the teens! I couldn’t tell if what I’d heard was true, false, or mashed up in a game of broken telephone, but whatever it was, nothing like that had ever happened at our Farm before. There’s always been plenty of sex, but always behind closed doors. What does this mean for the rest of us?
At teen Devotions the next morning, Auntie Sara explains that we are going to try out some experiments in how to raise Godly, dedicated, Family young people.
“Though younger teens under sixteen can no longer have sex with the adults, you are still strongly encouraged to have sex with each other,” Auntie Sara tells us. “I’m going to implement an experimental teen program here before introducing it in other countries.”